ke one as heroic
when the monks themselves were murdered, so that the great monastery
of De[vc]ani had perforce to be served by Russian monks from Mt.
Athos. Far distant, indeed, was the day when those Albanians, who
called themselves, after a river, the Fani, went to the assistance of
Du[vs]an. They had been brought to a temporary standstill by the
swollen waters of the Drin--"but," exclaimed one of their chieftains,
"for a hero every day is good." They crossed the river and Du[vs]an
gave them the name of Mirditi, by which they are still known, "mir
dit" signifying in their language "good day." Not only were the Serbs
compelled to don Albanian raiment--the Orthodox priest who ministers
to Djakovica had, in 1903, to put aside his Serbian head-dress on
leaving his quarter of the town; when making an official visit his
head-dress was Greek and always in the surrounding country it was
Albanian. Mr. Brailsford found, in June 1903, that the Serb peasants
were tenants at will, exposed to every caprice of their Albanian
conquerors; both at Pe['c], he says, and at Djakovica there was no law
and no court of justice. In 1903 at Muerzsteg, near Vienna, Francis
Joseph and the Tzar concluded their Macedonian reform scheme, this
rather futile arrangement paying, as one might suppose, not much
deference to the Serbs. In Bosnia also and in southern Hungary the
Serbs were in a humiliating position.

But the Serbs in the little kingdom strove manfully to put their own
house in order and to encourage their brethren. What is known as the
"Pig War" was waged, with astonishing success, against the Austrian
Empire; by sending her live-stock and meat overland to Salonica, her
cereals down the Danube, Serbia managed to break down the barriers
behind which the Austrians had intended to control her economic life.
The measures adopted by Stojanovi['c], the Minister of Commerce, were
confirmed by the Skup[vs]tina and enthusiastically supported by the
whole people, regardless of the accompanying privations or of any
bribes held out by the Austrians. Thus when the Austrians reduced the
fares on their well-equipped Save and Danube vessels, these were still
boycotted in favour of the Serbian boats. One morning at [vS]abac a
civil servant had embarked on the Austrian ship, while everybody else
was crowding on to the much smaller, slower and less cleanly Serbian
rival. The civil servant was being vigorously hissed, when he shouted
across to his compatri